21 September 2010 1:08 PM

At the launch of the new season, Mark McCafferty, the chief executive of Premiership Rugby, was explicit in setting out his ambitions for the growth of the domestic club game.

New interpretations of the law had made the game more entertaining and the fans would follow, voting with their feet and their wallets. If rugby’s attendance figures could continue to grow during the long winters of discontent, imagine what could happen now the game was fun to watch again.

Premier Rugby’s long-term ambition is for average attendances – 13,745 in the Guinness Premiership last season – to outstrip football’s Championship (18,106 last season and the fourth most-attended football league in Europe) inside five years. Given the steady upward curve of crowd numbers, that seemed ambitious but attainable.

Until the beginning of this season. Disregarding the show games – the Twickenham double-headers and Wembley spectaculars that boost attendance figures and bump up the average unrecognisably each season – clubs are suffering from relatively poor ticket sales.

Wasps failed to sell-out AdamsPark (a fairly modest ground in the first place) when taking on arch rivals and defending champions Leicester. Welford Road itself had more than 6,000 empty seats for the Tigers’ season opener against Exeter and Bath could fill only 200 of the 1,500 extra seats put in over the summer for their season debut against London Irish.

Maybe the Leicester faithful weren’t that interested in seeing their champions take on Exeter, as most were expecting the Premiership new boys to be on the receiving end of a round kicking. But at the Rec, it was a top of the league clash between arguably the two most entertaining sides on a crisp, sunny afternoon. Were Bath fans checking out the new shopping plaza down the road instead?

Television figures are not a source of comfort either. Last season, the Super League convincingly and consistently beat the Premiership in terms of attracting viewers (frequently doubling the union audiences during simultaneous transmissions). Meanwhile it is no reflection on the quality of ESPN’s coverage to point out that if fewer households around the country have access to the channel, viewing figures fall further. Out of sight, out of mind and all that.

When the Ashes left terrestrial television and moved to Sky, the popularity of cricket suffered. The 2005 series will always be remembered not only for the quality of the cricket, but by the fact that the entire nation found themselves caught up in the drama because it was available to every television owner in the country.

Hopefully these latest attendance figures are but a blip in rugby’s rise. The majority of last season was unarguably tough to watch, even for those getting paid to do so, and when audiences pick up on the fact that the sport is back to where it should be, they will be back in their thousands. Won’t they?

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A very interesting revelation came from Martin Johnson at Twickenham last week. Full of praise for the GPS tracking system the Elite squad now wear in training (measuring everything from speed and distance to the degree a player’s shoulder leans during a change of direction), he said that during England’s warm-up before the first Test in Australia this summer, some members of the team had covered more than 1.5km.

Thanks to this expensive piece of kit (it comes at £2,000 a pop) the coaching team realised this supposed warm-up was more of an overheat and duly changed tactics. They reduced the warm-up significantly in the second Test and you know what happened next.

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As the amateur rugby season kicks off in earnest around the country this weekend, it seems an appropriate time to mention an iPhone app that is taking grass-roots level rugby by storm. Rugby enthusiast Gordon Brown has designed and developed the free app Rugby Scorer – a simple but effective way of keeping track of play during a game. It’s not only being used at amateur level – rumour has it the Australian Women’s rugby team were on their iPhones during the recent World Cup. No need to sharpen your pencil on a Saturday morning anymore.

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15 September 2010 10:51 AM

When the style of rugby played by Premiership teams transformed in March this year — when the emphasis shifted from defensive kicking strategies to keeping the ball in hand and running with it very quickly at the opposition — it had nothing to do with any change to the laws themselves, but of the way in which referees were licensed to interpret the pre-existing laws.

A simple change in interpretation at the breakdown gave teams the confidence to utterly transform their playing strategies, and the statistics show the marked shift. Kicks in open play decreased by 12 per cent after March, line breaks increased by 80 per cent and the try count more than doubled (from 2.8 tries per match to 4.4 on average). The power of the referee becomes statistically apparent.

Last week the head of elite referees Ed Morrison spoke about a new IRB 'directive' that instructs referees only to blow the whistle when an offence is 'clear and obvious'. Focusing particularly on certain areas — the tackle area, the scrum, the maul and offsides — the directive (which again boils down to individual interpretation) is designed to favour an attacking side recycling quick ball.

All very well, but what happened to the old 'if it ain't broke...' mantra? It has taken rugby three years to recover from the ELV disaster; rule changes that destroyed the game as a spectacle because men in suits tried to make it more spectator friendly. By the end of last season rugby was back to its rampaging best, and yet the IRB — with the very best of intentions — insist on tweaking with the grey area of interpretation once again.

The final cause for alarm is the new unofficial motto of 'less advice, more whistle'. It is one of the distinguishing factors of rugby as a professional sport that dialogue between players and referees is integral to the flow of the game. Players are deemed sufficiently intelligent to converse with the referee, raise issues through the captain, and be instructed by the referee: 'I know what you're doing, and next time you do it I will take the necessary action.'

Lose this and rugby's in 'clear and obvious' danger of losing its identity.

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The new Super rugby format was launched in Melbourne this week and it makes about as much sense as a particularly impenetrable episode of Twin Peaks.

Having studied the literature and given it some thought, I can sum it up as follows: there are five teams from each country and they will play every team from their own country home and away; then everyone hops on a plane and travels to another country, where they will play some (not all) of the teams from that country; then everyone hops on a plane again and plays some (not all) of the teams from the last country; then some players join up with their Test team to play in the summer internationals, some go on holiday and get fat, some try to work out if they are still in the competition; finally — possibly months or years later — there's some sort of play-offs before Jeremy Clarkson decides which team has won what at a conference in Hawaii.

There. Now don't tell me that's too complicated.

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When did the haka become so controversial? It is surely one of the finest sights in world sport and deserves to be respected as such, so calls to have it banned can be dismissed as nonsense.

However, teams have the right of reply. When 83,000 supporters at Twickenham drown out 'Ka Mate' with 'Swing Low', or the Wallabies walk up to face the threat eye-to-eye, it only ever sets up a juicy, passionate Test Match.

The Australia women's rugby team have been fined £1000 by Rugby World Cup Limited for advancing on the Black Ferns mid-haka before their pool match at the Women's World Cup. The fine comes with a warning from the IRB board that in future tournaments, the haka must be treated with due respect and the opposition are expected to stand motionless.

I'd like to see any member of the IRB board stand motionless while 15 All Blacks perform a war dance within spitting distance. I for one wouldn't try it without hiding a nappy in my lycra.

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08 September 2010 12:08 PM

What on earth just happened? Leicester and Sarries thumped, Exeter triumphant. Last season's finalists, the outstanding two sides throughout the 2009-10 campaign, stumble out of the blocks, while newly promoted Exeter, unanimously tipped to return to the abyss of the Championship, start on the 'b' of the bang. Some opening weekend, that.

Small confession: I wasn't in the country. Some rugby hack, right? Accidentally books his only holiday during the opening weekend of the season... Guilty as charged but let's go all sports psychology and turn this negative into a position of strength. We can all learn from my mistake.

To repeat the opening sentiment: what on earth happened while I was away?

I feel like Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes, landing on a strange world after a trip to outer space (well, Greece) but instead of monkeys ruling earth in some future time dimension, Sandy Park is a fortress, London Irish translate talent into points, Matt Banahan is suddenly an outside centre and Soane Tonga'uiha is (joint) top try-scorer in the league.

In fact, the only thing to prove it is still the year 2010, I'm not a movie star and America and China haven't yet begun their apocalyptic nuclear war (you know, before the monkeys take over) is that the Statue of Liberty is standing proudly on Liberty Island, not rotting on a beach in Tunisia.

Having watched all the footage, I'm just beginning to assimilate how an extraordinary weekend of play unravelled, even if I'm missing a few pieces of the puzzle. Here's what (I think) happened.

Newcastle had a nasty shock. A lot of big talk during pre-season already rings a little hollow. A thrashing at the hands of Sale might be a blip, but it is probably an indication of a slog of a season ahead. Sale look a new side; a new coach and a new captain — the youngest in Premiership rugby — has brought a dash of dynamism and adventure to a team that needed it badly.

Gloucester deserved a rollicking after their sloppy performance and duly got one; on the pitch from Mike Tindall and in the changing room from Bryan Redpath. Not the fresh start they wanted, which might be something to do with the fresh breeze at Windy Park — not a fun place to travel to this season. To Exeter's great credit, they refused to celebrate after winning the wild west shoot-out, instead looking ahead to Saturday's baptism of fire at Welford Road. Good. Luck.

Matt Banahan's stinger on Leeds fly-half Ceiron Thomas early on sealed the home side's fate and Headingley seemed a dangerously quiet place for the season opener. Bath fly-half Sam Vesty could be an even better signing than Lewis Moody for the Premiership's new rich boys, who have managed to carry their season-ending form into September.

Leicester won't be too worried about their opening defeat in the long run, but the fact that Saints' fly-half Stephen Myler missed five kicks and the odd drop goal shows just how flattering the 27-19 scoreline was. The biggest concern was the pack. We knew Northampton could run from anywhere, but dominate the Tigers up front? That's a lot of pre-season hard work right there.

And then the London double header in front of 75,000 at HQ. Saracens' Alex Goode had a mixed debut at No 10 and despite his undeniable flair he must start to control the game in his new position. To quote Meat Loaf, he still has a hell of a lot to learn about rock and roll. Irish looked like the side that got to the final in 2009 again.

Afterwards, Brendan Venter took seeing the positives from defeat to a whole new level. 'This will be the best thing that happens to us all season,' he said with a straight face. 'It's a lot more fun when things are difficult. It's not enough of a challenge when you're only winning.' Sure, Bren. Tell that to Cecil Duckworth.

As for the other Londoners, Harlequins and Wasps will both be frustrated with the draw. Still, at least that was the one match that delivered the usual season-opening fodder; sleepy, occasionally disorganised, slightly rusty rugby. It was wonderful to watch. It felt like I was back on planet earth again.